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The Elephant in BPM's Room: Unhealthy Performance Management Policies
By Forrest W. Breyfogle III | Jul 28, 2009
The economic crisis was caused, in part, by fundamental business process management (BPM) issues that led to some destructive behaviors and left companies with very poor resistance to economic stresses. Yet little attention seems to be given to these elephant-in-the-room issues.
In discussions of the causes of our current economic and financial troubles, many commentators have focused on greed as a major factor that led to severe unintended consequences. Others -- bloggers from the Harvard Business Review (HBR), for example -- have placed the blame for the crisis on the failings of our business schools.
It seems to me that many of our present difficulties can be traced to failures in overall enterprise governance systems. The economic crisis was caused, in part, by fundamental business process management (BPM) issues that led to some destructive behaviors and left companies with very poor resistance to economic stresses. Yet little attention seems to be given to these elephant-in-the-room issues.
Take, for example, Lean and Lean Six Sigma projects. These are often reported to produce improve

Design to Align: The Key Component in BPM Success
By Simon Tucker and Ron Dimon | Apr 17, 2009
The cleanest data, the latest tools, and the most advanced infrastructure can't guarantee success for your BPM project if it's out of synch with the organization at large. Here's how to get your ducks in a row.
The word "alignment" may have lost some of its value in business conversations through overuse lately, but for business performance management (BPM) projects, the requirements that it denotes remain essential.
The Random House Unabridged Dictionary defines alignment as "a state of agreement or cooperation among persons, groups, etc., with a common cause or viewpoint." It's easy to see how BPM enables this "state." Ideally, BPM provides an environment of cooperation (for purposes of modeling, planning, and reporting and analysis) that supports agreement (one version of the truth) among the various persons and groups within the organization. And it helps those users take action in pursuit of their "common cause": achieving performance targets, executing company strategy, and delivering value to stakeholders.

Captain Jack and the BPM Market: Performance Management in Turbulent Times
By by John Colbert | Jun 1, 2009
Just like the fictional Master and Commander, today's business executives face tempestuous challenges. BPM can help them to chart a course through the storm, even as the winds of change buffet the major market players.
In the early scenes of the epic drama Master and Commander - The Far Side of the World, Captain Jack Aubrey, played by Russell Crowe, is found on the quarterdeck making decision after decision to protect his ship and save the lives of his crew (as well as his own) while accomplishing his mission. Gale-force winds, dense fog, the unrelenting sea, and the sinister presence of an enemy ship threaten the captain's chances of survival, and he has to make constant course modifications, jettison a fallen mast (along with a deckhand), and demonstrate supreme confidence to his crew so that they can all survive to see another day of blue skies and calm seas.

During this past year, business performance management (BPM) became a core offering of the world's largest software vendors. IBM, Oracle, and SAP all now have market-leading products in this area. These solutions are not primarily homegrown but instead are the result of prior acquisitions. This group of companies, along with Infor, SAS, and several others, essentially form the top tier of BPM vendors. Their offerings tend to be comprehensive, combining BPM with business intelligence (BI) and in some cases ERP.
The next group of solution providers is focused on what we define as financial performance management suites. This consists of budgeting, planning, forecasting, consolidation, and reporting, as well as scorecards and dashboards. While this group has been shrinking over the years due to acquisitions by BI or ERP vendors, it is now rebounding and is more robust than ever. Some vendors that had been overshadowed in the past, such as Longview and Clarity, are now coming into their own. In addition, some products developed outside of the U.S. have recently been added to the mix as companies such as Tagetik and Carpio have entered the U.S. market. This group is also the home of some of the most successful vendors targeting the midmarket. Adaptive Planning, with its SaaS offerings, and Prophix are two leading choices in this segment.

A New Brand of Value: Integrating Branding into Corporate Performance Management
By James Gregory, Bob Paladino, and Jill Akman | Apr 22, 2009
Performance management activities do not generally focus on the performance of the corporate brand. But adding measures of brand familiarity, favorability, and loyalty to corporate performance management processes sets the stage for better corporate strategy execution.
Every business has a corporate brand that requires attentive management. Brands have an innate power to either hurt or help a company; the organization determines which of these two possibilities becomes reality through the ways in which it leverages the brand.
Sometimes the corporate brand is thought of as a cost center, but organizations are better served by viewing it as a business asset. A company needs to understand its brand, gauge its effectiveness and potential, and manage the brand as it would any other asset.
This is a challenging proposition. A corporate brand affects multiple audiences, both internal and external. Internally, a brand touches employees, management, shareholders, partners, and vendors. Externally, the brand can reach the media, prospective investors, customers, and everyone else who interacts with the organization.